ITEMS OF INTEREST May 22, 2006 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

with contributions from Daniel J. Redding

"A NEW 'CENTER FOR SPIRITUALITY AND THE MIND' has been created at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine to support campus-wide researchers from a wide variety of academic disciplines who will further our understanding of what it means to be 'religious' and 'spiritual.' The multidisciplinary teams of researchers will study the issue from a number of related perspectives—including psychological, social, biological, and ideological....

"'Our researchers are intensely interested in the religious, theological, and philosophical implications of the research in this field,' adds [Andrew] Newberg [director of the Center's investigations]. 'It cuts across so many disciplines, and it is at the center of the whole discussion of what religion and spirituality are to us as human beings. Ours will be the first Center in the world to explore this from the perspective of the mind.'

"'When we look at human beings, there have been two major forces in human history: the religious/spiritual force and the science/technological force,' he continues. 'They've both had such an important role throughout time that we really need to look at how these two are interrelated, for humanity, in a global way.'"

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